Wolves January bid for Brazil international striker Yuri Alberto did not go down too well at Corinthians with the Premier League outfit hoping to strike a £18 million loan-to-buy deal.
Six months after Corinthians turned down an offer from West Ham United, their talented centre-forward once again saw an opportunity to make a name for himself in England slip through his fingers.
HITC Football understands that Wolverhampton Wanderers’ held talks over a deal which would have seen Yuri Alberto move to Molineux on loan during the final 24 hours of the January window. Despite offering to include an £18 million option-to-buy clause in his contract, however, Corinthians wasted little time in informing the Black Country outfit that Alberto would be going nowhere without the guarantee of a substantial transfer fee.
Wolves suffer same fate as West Ham United
“Wolves’ offer was to loan Yuri Alberto for free until the end of the season and, if he hit a few targets, he would be purchased (permanently),” Brazilian reporter Jorge Nicola explains on his official YouTube channel.
“Corinthians considered the offer to be bad. I heard from someone at Corinthians that, following the conversation, (the talks with Wolves) did not evolve.”
Alberto, who scored 15 goals for Corinthians last term after a spell in Russia with Zenit St Petersburg, is one of a number of striker targets Wolves tried and failed to sign before Thursday’s deadline. there was also interest in Chelsea frontman Armando Broja, HITC having been informed that they had an offer rejected before the London-born Albanian made the short trip from Stamford Bridge to Fulham instead.
Chelsea send Armando Broja to Fulham
“We didn’t manage to get a nine done. There were a few that I really liked. And we couldn’t afford any,” manager Gary O’Neil told the Shropshire Star following the heartbreaking 4-3 defeat to Manchester United, while insisting that he has no doubts about letting both Fabio Silva and Sasa Kalajdzic go.
“We could afford some, but not ones that I thought would help us. Are we short of a number 9? Yeah. But I felt we were short of a number nine when those two (Silva and Kalajdzic) were still here. So we’re still short. That’s where we are.
“I was really keen not to panic and just sign anyone. The financial stuff was an issue for us.
“We were speaking to Chelsea about Broja for a lot of the day. We just couldn’t afford to do it financially with where it ended up.”
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